Category Archives: England

Review: THE CARRIER by Sophie Hannah

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This book was chosen for my monthly book club read so I didn’t read a review or its blurb before toddling home with one of my library’s copies. I like to think I had an open mind, though I will admit my one previous exposure to a Shophie Hannah novel wasn’t a terribly positive one.

The opening chapter of THE CARRIER is narrated by Gaby Struthers. She is a 38 year-old business woman who does a lot of travelling for work. On one trip she is prevented from flying out of Dusseldorf airport by bad weather and becomes trapped into looking after one of her fellow passengers, a younger woman called Lauren, whom Gaby thinks of as an ‘unstable tattooed moron’ . Gaby’s sarcastic, superior-sounding internal monologue as she deals with Lauren’s anger at being late and other rants is both funny and cruel but overall did have me thinking I might enjoy the read.

Which is just about the time things fell apart, enjoyment-wise. Lauren has announced that she shouldn’t let a man take the fall for a murder he did not commit but Gaby only finds out many hours later that the man Lauren is talking about is Tim Breary who has confessed to murdering his wife Francine. Though she lives with a different man, Gaby is in love with Tim Breary and vows that she will prove his innocence and thus allow the two of them to live together…finally.

And so begins a tortured tale of thoroughly unlikeable  not terribly believable people, any of whom I would happily have murdered myself if it meant getting to the end of this tome a little bit sooner.

The cast is rounded out by a wealthy married couple called Kerry and Dan who allowed Tim and his wife to move into their mansion two years previously when Francine had a stroke leaving her unable to move or speak and needing 24-hour care. Like Tim they despise Francine for the cruel woman she was pre-stroke, but they adore Tim and want to help him out. Lauren, who we met as the anxious traveller in the book’s opening, was employed as Francine’s carer and she also lives in the mansion along with her husband Jason who is handyman-cum-gardener-cum-thug.

For reasons that are never even remotely clear to me Tim inspires complete worship amongst a mini cult of devotees, i.e. Gaby, Kerry and Dan. As depicted he is an asinine  self-indulgent, bore constantly droning on about his unworthiness. Either he or the author thinks throwing a few lines of poetry into every conversation makes him seem intellectual but honestly it just made him a bit more of a pratt. In short he has all the charisma of wet socks on a winter’s day and I simply did not believe that three adult human beings (even ones with dysfunctional personal histories of their own) would devote themselves to him so fully (Kerry and Dan in particular uproot their own lives completely several times just to be able to serve Tim).

The problem is that this premise underpins the whole story and because I did not buy into it even a little bit the rest of the thing was…well…laughable.

My incredulity only rose a notch or three when the officers of the Spilling police station entered the fray. This completely dysfunctional group of dolts includes Simon Waterhouse and Charlie Zailer who I first met in LITTLE FACE where I thought their fractured relationship completely unworkable. Apparently there have been 6 books in between that book and this one and, unfathomably, the pair are still together. Indeed they’re married now but appear to be as emotionally crippled as they were at the beginning. It’s clear from early events here that a lot more has gone on between these two and amongst their wider group of colleagues and while I don’t know the details of all this sordid nonsense I gather none of it has been pleasant. The upshot of it all is an entire station populated by people who would never actually be employed in a police force but, more to the point, who add absolutely nothing to this story at all aside from word count and tedious sidetracks into infidelity and appalling parenting.

The reason they enter the story at all is because even though Tim has confessed to killing his wife and all the other people involved agree that Tim killed his wife the constabulary diverts its apparently endless resources to investigating the notion that Tim is innocent. There’s a bunch of baffling shenanigans from the boss of the station to ensure that a full investigation takes place and it all seems so far-fetched to me that I have made a mental note that if I ever am accused of a crime I should proclaim my guilt loudly and often as the likeliest way to  make sure the police look for some other bugger to pin it on.

There’s no doubt that Hannah can string a sentence together in a way that is a pleasure to read but that alone doesn’t make a worthwhile reading experience, at least not for me. Her characters are ugly and unrealistic en masse, her plotting tries too hard to be clever and just ends up being tedious and her supposed exploration of human psychology is cruel and borders on the puerile.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
Publisher Hodder & Stoughton [2013]
ISBN/ASIN 9780340980736
Length 418 pages
Format paperback
Book Series #8 in the Simon Waterhouse/Spilling Police series

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Review: THE ASSASSIN’S PRAYER by Ariana Franklin

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TheAssassinsPrayerAudioI embarked on THE ASSASSIN’S PRAYER (aka A MURDEROUS PROCESSION) somewhat wistfully. Having liked its three predecessors very much I wanted to read it but knowing it is the last in the small series gives a finality to my involvement with its ongoing characters that is quite rare. I saved it up for as long as I could but in the end my curiosity about the fate of its central character, an unlikely but engaging Medieval female doctor, demanded that I read this last instalment.

As the book opens it is 1176 or thereabouts, two years since the events of the third book in the series, RELICS OF THE DEAD and life for Adelia, her young daughter and the close friends who are a de facto family is relatively calm. But calm lives do not make for fascinating reading and the drama of this novel is sparked when King Henry demands that Adelia, her loyal manservant Mansur and others accompany his daughter Joanna, who is only 10, on her journey to marry King William II of Sicily. To ensure Adelia’s return Henry refuses her permission to take Allie, the young daughter she had with her lover Rowley (now Bishop of St Albans) and entrusts the child to the care of his imprisoned wife Eleanor. Almost from the beginning the large travelling party is plagued by a series of setbacks – a lame horse, medical emergencies and so on – that some ascribe to the ‘witch’ Adelia. But the real cause is far more sinister: one of the travellers wants Adelia dead and will go to any lengths to make it happen.

I can see looking back that these books have gotten progressively less mysterious as the series has progressed but this one is hardly a mystery at all. It’s more straight historical fiction with overtones of thriller I suppose. Not that I care really (it wouldn’t take much for me to digress for a rant about the ludicrous and unnecessary genre-isation of literature) but I thought I should make it clear in case all you want is a book that is pure historical crime fiction. If so this is not the book for you as there really isn’t much of a whodunnit element.

If however you are interested in the period, lovingly recreated with equal parts research and imagination, great characters and a romp of an adventure then I’d recommend the book, though this is one of those cases where having read the previous instalments is a real advantage by offering insight into some of the characters’ behaviour and choices. As always the period details are absorbing and this time some of the novel’s highlights are due to Adelia and company’s interactions with a community of Cathars, some members of which are first encountered when the travelling party has fallen ill and must take refuge so that the sick can be tended to. Franklin uses this community, essentially a splinter group which derided the more ostentatious and corrupt practices of the Catholic Church, to explore  the differences between religious doctrine and genuine faith which is a theme she has visited in earlier novels too. It is perhaps due to my own biases in this arena that I find her exploration of this idea both engaging and timely. The brutal torture and murder of people due solely to their apparent disregard for the prevailing religious doctrine is not, sadly, something found only in history books and I guess I cling to the hope that any time the tragic irony of this kind of stupidity can be exposed we collectively draw a little closer to eradicating this nonsense from our world.

In many ways this is a more sombre book than its predecessors, as if the entire novel is subject to the pall of impending doom that hangs over the procession though really it is due to the sadness of its central character. Although happy to be going home to Sicily Adelia is almost bereft at leaving her daughter and when a truly horrible fate befalls a newly made friend and she is then made aware of the presence of a malevolent force intent upon her destruction it’s not hard to see why Adelia isn’t as quick with the witty banter as she has been in earlier novels. I thought this more serious tone quite fitting for the last book in the series but of course it probably was not meant to be the last one and I’m undoubtedly attributing something never intended by the author (who died last year). Even so there are hints of the old humour and the story itself doesn’t allow the reader much time to dwell on its sadnesses, quickly moving from near-miss, to capture, to escape and more. Although probably unintended I found the cliffhanger ending quite satisfying as I have imagined my own conclusion to Adelia’s story but I do appreciate that many readers feel a little cheated by the unresolved nature of things,

I’m sure Franklin has taken some liberties with history and acceptable behaviour in creating this novel and its predecessors but I neither know nor care what they are. In the main the historical context is accurate and Franklin explains, via an afterword  some of her reasoning for diverting in the smaller details. Adelia and her unorthodox collection of loved ones have been a delight to meet and I recommend their adventures highly.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I’ve reviewed all the earlier books in this series MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH, THE SERPENT’S TALE and RELICS OF THE DEAD (aka GRAVE GOODS)
♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4/5
Narrator Diana Bishop
Publisher Random House/AudioGO [This edition 2011, original edition 2010]
ASIN B005AON1PW
Length 10 hours 52 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #4 in the Mistress of the Art of Death/Adelia Aguilar series
Source I bought it
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Review: SPLIT SECOND by Cath Staincliffe

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split secondOn a Manchester bus one evening three teenagers start picking on 16 year old Luke Donnelly. When Luke runs off the bus chased by his tormentors 18 year-old Jason Barnes, the only passenger to go to his aid, follows them and the fight continues in the front garden of a nearby house. Soon one of the five is dead.

Telling the story of this sad, unnecessary death and the people whose lives it changed forever, SPLIT SECOND makes for very compelling reading. There can few readers who would not identify with one or more of the three people from whose perspective events unfold and Staincliffe is to be congratulated for making non of them overt, unbelievable heroes or villains. They are ordinary people caught up in unimaginably horrid circumstances and they cope, or not, without benefit of superhuman abilities or life-chaging Oprah moments.

Emma is a shy young woman who is a passenger on the bus and who agonises over whether or not to intervene in the harassment of Luke. Her fear is palpable and becomes more and more understandable in retrospect as we learn about her and her family history. Louise is Luke’s mother, struggling to raise two mixed-race children, Luke and his younger sister Ruby, on her own. Andrew is Jason Barnes’ father and must deal with the aftermath of the events with his wife who becomes increasingly withdrawn. As well as offering three very realistic and nuanced character studies Staincliffe uses their voices to explore the justice system from the perspective of accidental participants who find the things they might reasonably have expected – support, information, guidance and justice itself – in very short supply.

SPLIT SECOND is not crime fiction in the traditional sense as the official aftermath of the death – the investigation and legal manoeuvrings - are not the central focus of the story. For that reason, and because it is a well-written, decently paced novel about people any reader could recognise, I’d recommend it to readers of all genres.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Thanks to my reading fairy godmother who sent me her copy of this book a few months ago but it languished in a moving box until just recently, more’s the pity. You can read her review at Euro Crime

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4.5/5
Publisher Constable [2012]
ISBN 9781849013451
Length 12 hours 42 minutes
Format paperback
Book Series standalone
Source a gift
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Review: THE VANISHING POINT by Val McDermid

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Val McDermid’s THE VANISHING POINT opens with scenes that draw the reader in by their familiarity. I’m sure we’ve all stood in those interminable airport queues that are the staple of modern travelling and we’ve all been at our wit’s end arguing with some intransigent bureaucrat or other. And so is Stephanie Harker who has arrived in the US from England with 5-year old Jimmy and is pulled aside for an additional security screening while changing planes at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. She watches in horror as Jimmy is kidnapped from under her very nose while the TSA staff ignore her pleas and taser her for being a potential security threat. When she finally makes someone understand what has happened the child is long gone and Stephanie is then interviewed by an FBI agent about hers and Jimmy’s history in an attempt to glean who might have wanted to kidnap him. Most of the rest of the book is taken up with Stephanie recounting her long history with reality TV star Scarlett Higgins and her son Jimmy. Amidst these lengthy flashbacks there are short interludes depicting a frustrating progress in the search for Jimmy or his kidnapper, both of whom appear to have vanished into thin air.

McDermid is a superb spinner of yarns and THE VANISHING POINT is yet another piece of evidence to prove the point. This really isn’t a standard kind of thriller as it spends only a fraction of its pages dealing with the kidnapping and its aftermath but, despite this, it managed to keep me on the edge of my seat for almost the whole book.

It is through Stephanie’s work as a ghost writer that she meets Scarlett – a ladette kind of character who Stephanie assumes she will dislike. It is to Stephanie’s (and McDermid’s) credit though that ‘wrong-side-of-the-tracks’ Scarlett is soon seen as something more than the two-dimensional drunken celebrity everyone expects her to be. Stephanie is hired to ghost write Scarlett’s ‘rags to riches’ life story in the form of a letter to Scarlett’s unborn child. First due to her diligence in doing her job and then also due to a genuine affection she starts to draw out a more complex character than the one familiar from the newspapers and the two develop a friendship that surprises everyone.

As well as the snappy pace of the book I enjoyed McDermid’s not-so-gentle digs at popular culture and media, in particular ‘the red tops‘ (a phrase completely unfamiliar to me before reading this book) and the general public’s seemingly insatiable demand for dirt (the grubbier the better). The two central characters of Stephanie and Scarlett are nicely drawn and the depiction of their friendship, a thing not often seen in crime fiction where characters are either friendless or the friendships are fully formed outside the confines of the pages, is an unexpected highlight of the book.

I have to admit I found the ending a bit predictable, a lot silly and not really in keeping with the rest of the book but as I enjoyed the middle 90% of the book I’m not taking a lot of points off for a dodgy ending. All in all this is a very entertaining read that might just make you look at reality TV and/or the media about it a little differently.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 3.5/5
Publisher Little, Brown [2012]
ISBN 9781408703229
Length 434 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series standalone
Source I borrowed it from the library
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Review: FINDERS KEEPERS by Belinda Bauer

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In the Exmoor village of Shipcott darkness is afoot. Sorry, that was the beginning of my review of Bauer’s previous novel, DARKSIDE. But it must be said that a review of this book could start in almost exactly the same way. With FINDERS KEEPERS Bauer doesn’t ask her readers to suspend disbelief so much as to send it away to a Soviet Gulag and never speak of it again. The third book to depict unspeakable things happening in the exact same speck of England, at least half of them to a single family, FINDERS KEEPERS proved to have an impossible premise for me to swallow.

Here someone is kidnapping children from vehicles while their parents or guardians are otherwise engaged, each time with a note left behind indicating that the child wasn’t loved. The ensuing investigation is something of a roller coaster for the police, a rule following bureaucrat with new hair plugs and his smarter, rule-breaking offsider, and the parents of the children who wonder if their children are alive or not as the weeks stretch out with few leads to follow.

There are flashes of Bauer’s excellent storytelling skills on show in the book and her writing, brilliantly observational and blessedly concise, is up to her usual high standards. The minutiae of village life, investigative procedure and the frustration for all involved in such a lengthy case devoid of evidence are well depicted, as are the coming of age elements of the story in which young love burgeons and siblings don’t always rub along well together. But overall for me the story does not hold up. As well as putting in peril the unluckiest 17 year old in fictiondom this book chooses to reveal the kidnapping culprit about half-way along which has something of a dampening effect on tension levels and turns it into a bit of a farce. In fact the whole second half of the book, after it is revealed what has become of the children and why, fails to ring true.

In the end it is a testament to Bauer’s skills as a writer that I didn’t stop reading the book all together once I started chuckling or eye rolling where I should have felt menace. Her observations about humanity are accurate and humour filled without being mercilessly sarcastic and so are a pleasure to read. But I think I’ll have to forego that pleasure if she continues to visit evil on the same tiny community in future books.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I reviewed the first two of Bauer’s books BLACKLANDS and DARKSIDE

FINDERS KEEPERS has been reviewed at Euro Crime and Newton Review of Books (where the reviewer liked it more than I did)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 3/5
Narrator John Sackville
Publisher ISIS Audiobooks [2012]
ASIN B008PTR2UY
Length 10 hours 9 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Source I bought it

Review: THE OTHER CHILD by Charlotte Link

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Although at odds with the précis provided on the back of the book to me THE OTHER CHILD is at heart the story of septuagenarian Fiona Barnes who has lived in a Yorkshire village for most of her life, first having been evacuated there from London as an 11 year old girl during World War II. Virtually all of the other main characters in this book have some connection to Fiona including close friend Chad Bennett and his daughter Gwen and Fiona’s adult granddaughter Leslie. The main drama occurs when Gwen and her new finance, Dave Tanner, are giving a small engagement party at the Bennett’s farm. Several of the guests but in particular Fiona, can see trouble ahead for the unworldly Gwen and the evening ends in a fight. The next day one of the party is found dead and there are similarities to the murder three months earlier of a young student.

I don’t mind a good bit of undemanding escapism but for choice I’d read a thriller or a comic caper to fill that slot than the sort of Gothic melodrama with thin veneer of crime novel that THE OTHER CHILD turned out to be. It meandered through the romantic (and unromantic) entanglements of the characters and while many readers would, I’m sure, find the intricacies of those entanglements interesting in their own right I was a bit bored while I waited for something to happen but I acknowledge that says more about my taste than the quality of the book. In addition to the present day scenario we learn about Fiona’s past through a series of documents that she had emailed to Chad, documenting their shared experiences during and following the war. It is here we learn of the other child whose fate might have repercussions in the present day but I thought this thread, which had the potential to be quite powerful, limped along as something of an afterthought for most of the story, only really coming into its own towards the end,

I’m not sure if it was a result of the translation or the fact that the author does not live in the  setting of the novel (She is German) or was merely a stylistic choice but the portions of the book purporting to be Fiona’s accounting of her evacuation and subsequent events did not ring true. I realise all historical fiction is created from the author’s absorption of information from other sources but here the excerpts really felt like they were cobbled together from fairly superficial resources and I never once felt transported to Fiona’s bombed out London or idyllic Yorkshire farm. In fact although she was a central hook for the book I didn’t think Fiona was developed terribly well as a character at all, whereas some of the more minor players such as Leslie and even the unlikeable but interesting Dave Tanner seemed more fully formed and engaging to read about.

For me this would have been a better book with a hundred fewer pages but that is not an uncommon complaint of mine and otherwise it was a perfectly pleasant, though not terribly memorable, read. If you like your crime mixed with romance and history (I’m loathe to step into comparison territory but I thought it had some similarities to work by Kate Moreton) then I think you’ll enjoy THE OTHER CHILD.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Not really anything to do with the quality or otherwise of the book but I found the character name Chad to be an odd choice for an English person born in the late 1920′s in rural Yorkshire. Is it just me or does that sound like a very American name?

THE OTHER CHILD was my book club’s selection for this month.

Other reviews of it are at Euro Crime (Maxine), The Bibliomouse and Thinking in Fragments

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 3/5
Translator Stefan Tobler (from German)
Publisher Hachette [Original edition 2009, this translation 2012]
ISBN 9781409123385
Length 410 pages
Format paperback
Book Series standalone.
Source I borrowed it from the library
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Review: A DARK REDEMPTION by Stav Sherez

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As my shelves (and digital devices) are quite literally groaning under the weight of police procedural novels set in England I’m not really in the market for another series to follow. But given I still have strong images in my head from the last book I read by Sherez (set in Greece) I couldn’t resist this first instalment of a promised new series even though it’s in a crowded space. It turns out to have been a good decision..

A DARK REDEMPTION opens with three young men taking a trip to Uganda following their university graduation and before they have to knuckle down to jobs and real life. On their travels they make a seemingly random choice which leads them into the clutches of a rebel army and a grim stretch in custody though at this point we don’t learn a lot of the details of what went on. The main part of the story then starts, taking place a dozen or so years later. Jack Carrigan, one of the three men who had travelled to Africa, is a Detective Inspector in London and he is put in charge of the investigation into the brutal murder of a young African student named Grace Okello. But Jack has made enemies on the force and his boss forces Geneva Miller, a woman who has had her own brushes with bureaucracy, to be the DS on the investigation. She is to assist Jack and report back to his superiors about his behaviour and methods. At the start of the investigation the two are wary of each other and also have different ideas about the motivations for the murder – with Jack thinking her violent boyfriend responsible and Geneva wondering if it is somehow linked to Grace’s research into the armed conflict in her native country. But as the case unfolds the two detectives develop a respect for each other and of course narrow down the focus of their investigation.

I was a little wary of the themes this book looked set to tackle given that I started it as the Kony 2012 social media frenzy was in full swing. Happily my fears were unfounded as Sherez deals with the African elements of the story (including the aforementioned Kony) sensitively and intelligently; managing to portray nuances of the situation in both Uganda and amongst the displaced African community living in England that you won’t find in most mainstream media. Some of the segments of the book are violent but it never feels at all gratuitous and the story would not feel authentic if there were not some level of violence given what we know about the recent real-world history that provides the story’s backdrop. Sherez uses several methods for imparting the relevant information about Ugandan history and politics and in combination these are quite the lesson in how authors of this type of novel can do such things without making the reader feel as if they are in a lecture theatre.

I agree with Sarah at Crimepieces who wrote that Carrigan’s maverick status was depicted in an understated way as that is exactly how I felt. Too many crime books these days appear to be working from a list of quirks and anti-authority behaviours to give their protagonists and there is a tendency to go overboard or have no real reason for the traits displayed. Jack is not at the extreme end of the scale and any foibles he does have make sense within the context that Sherez provides. There are also quite a few hints of secrets still to be explored in both his and Miller’s lives in what I hope will be some future instalments of the series as I enjoyed both characters and would happily read more of their exploits.

On one level I suppose this book is ‘just’ police procedural novel but it is a superior example of the genre. Both thoughtful and thought-provoking A DARK REDEMPTION manages to explore a complex issue without either sensationalising them or treating readers like morons and for that alone I applaud it. The fact that it also provides a suspense-filled mystery and a decent resolution is icing on this excellent cake. To undoubtedly stretch the dessert metaphor a little too far the narration by English actor David Thorpe is the delicious chocolate sprinkles on the icing :)

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Sidenote: I know that authors normally have little influence over their book covers so it’s unfair to include this in the review proper (and I have not taken the matter into account) but this cover couldn’t be less relevant to the book if it tried. The near ubiquitous shadowy silhouettes that are much beloved of crime fiction marketing/publishing types these days tell us nothing to make us pick up the book or to mark it out as unique and, now that I’ve read it, don’t even hint at anything going on within the story. If a cover is going to be this irrelevant why bother?

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A DARKER REDEMPTION has been reviewed at Crimepieces and It’s A Crime.

I reviewed an earlier, unrelated book by Sherez set in Greece called THE BLACK MONASTERY in the early days of this blog.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4/5
Narrator David Thorpe
Publisher Audible Ltd [2012]
ASIN B007D56PK4 (downloaded from audible.com)
Length 11 hours 11 minutes
Format audio (mp3)
Book Series #1 in the Carrigan and Miller series
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
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Review: Trick of the Dark by Val McDermid

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Having complained often and at length about authors who write the same book over and over again I chose to TRICK OF THE DARK up precisely because it was clear from the disparity of opinion about it that, if nothing else, McDermid had written a different book from her previous work. My main exposure to her writing has been through the Tony Hill books which are a bit bloody for my taste though I do like her writing so I was keen to try more of her standalone novels.

There were lots of things I enjoyed about TRICK OF THE DARK though my relationship with the book didn’t start well as the main character, psychiatrist Charlie Flint, is angst-ridden about whether or not to cheat on her wife Maria with another woman. I groaned audibly I think as the ‘to cheat or not to cheat’ storyline is a particular annoyance of mine both in real life and in fiction (cheat if you must but don’t bend my ear about your vacillation is my motto). But even though that thread does run throughout the novel I thoroughly enjoyed the rest of this complicated and fast-paced book.

As well as considering embarking on an affair, Charlie is in professional disgrace as the book opens due to an assessment she had made in a criminal case. Although something of a side thread I found this quite fascinating as it explored the notion of guilt and whether or not people can or should be prevented by society from committing crimes they’ve only thought about. One morning she receives some curious news clippings in the mail about a murdered bridegroom she doesn’t know. After some plot contrivances she works out that the clippings have been sent by one of her tutors from her time at Oxford and the widower of the bridegroom is Magda, whom Charlie knew as Maggot when she used to babysit her some years ago. When she gets in touch with the tutor, Corinna, she is is asked to investigate Magda’s husband’s murder. Corinna doesn’t think the two people who have been found guilty of the murder were responsible, instead she blames Magda’s new love interest, a woman called Jay who is also a former student of Corinna’s and is now a very wealthy business woman. Corinna tells Charlie that if she does not investigate and find evidence of Jay’s guilt Corinna will do whatever it takes to protect her daughter from the woman she perceives as evil.

That’s about as simply as I can summarise the early part of the book and it gets more complicated from that point on but it’s surprisingly easy to follow. Though perhaps that’s just because McDermid has the skill to make such twists and turns look easy. The book does require the suspension of disbelief but I had no trouble doing that, quickly getting caught up in the whydunnit aspects of the novel and the lives of its three main characters.

In some ways I thought Charlie the least interesting of the three (though admit that’s mainly because I was bored by the whole cheating thread). Jay Stewart, whose point of view much of the story is told from, would be intriguing I think even if you weren’t always wondering in the back of your mind if she is a serial killer. She has already published one book, a misery memoir of her horrid childhood, to much acclaim and has been persuaded to write a second biography. This volume will focus on her more recent life of ‘triumph over tragedy’ and we learn about her life as she writes different chapters though readers are always aware of the unreliable nature of Jay’s ‘recollections’. It would be a terrific sign of society’s maturity to be able to write about this book without mentioning that the three main characters (and several minor ones) are lesbians but the women’s sexuality is a significant factor in the stories. Their various experiences of coming out (or not doing so) and being on the receiving end of homophobia significantly colours the lives of all the lesbians in the story and so is an integral part of the book. Unlike some of the more vitriolic reviews on Good Reads and Amazon I thought this aspect of the book was handled sensitively and intelligently.

TRICK OF THE DARK managed to draw me into subjects and worlds I have no experience of including the cloistered atmosphere of Oxford college and its lingering pull on all who attend, as well as the tribulations of being gay and hated for that fact (in my bubble world I like to think we’re all grown up about such things now but clearly not). Having had somewhat ambivalent expectations of this book through reading very positive and very negative reviews I was pleasantly surprised and would recommend the book to those who can suspend their disbelief in the interests of a ripping, and thought-provoking yarn.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

TRICK OF THE DARK has been reviewed at Crime Scraps, Euro Crime, Euro Crime (2), Petrona and Savidge Reads

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 4/5
Author website http://www.valmcdermid.com/index.html
Publisher Hachette Digital [2010]
ISBN 9780748117017
Length 362 pages
Format eBook (ePub)
Book Series standalone
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: A Room Full of Bones by Elly Griffiths

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In the fourth book to feature forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway the mystery starts early on. Ruth has been asked to attend a local museum for the opening of a coffin which was found at a construction site and is thought to contain the remains of a medieval Bishop. She arrives to find the museum’s curator lying on the floor. Not being certain if the man is alive or not she phones an ambulance and the police. The man is pronounced dead on his arrival at hospital and the police investigation steps up a notch which introduces DI Harry Nelson to the action.

Of course anyone who has read the previous novels in this serious would have been waiting for this meeting as Ruth and Harry have a personal history which was left at a rather dramatic point at the end of The House at Sea’s End. I’m trying not to give spoilers to this or previous books so I won’t say much more, other than to reflect that I thought Griffiths did a good job of capturing the awkwardness realistically. She’s also done a good job of encapsulating the essence of the personal lives of Ruth, Harry and their friends and colleagues so this would be a decent place to start the series if you are interested in trying it out but don’t feel you have the time or energy to read the three earlier books.

The mystery element in this novel is stronger than has been the case in the previous novels which, while entertaining, were all fairly easy to stay ahead of, especially for seasoned crime readers. Here there are several threads that need to be sorted out including the very basic question of whether or not the museum curator was murdered or not. There do prove to be two potential motives including a possible connection to claims being made for the repatriation of Australian Aboriginal bones and skulls in the museum’s custody. Ruth’s old friend Cathbad is a member of a group which has requested the items be returned to Australia for a proper burial, as is her new next door neighbour who is an academic visiting from Australia. He is also a member of the same tribal group to which the bones belong so he has a personal stake in the repatriation of the items. The issue of such repatriation is becoming increasingly vitriolic in the real world but Griffiths handled its complexity and sensitivity well. In particular Ruth’s needing time to weigh up the pros and cons on a personal and professional level rang very true. I’m always a little wary of ‘foreign’ books which throw in Australian characters or tackle other subjects I am familiar with but Elly Griffiths has done well on both counts here.

It’s fair to say that most fans of this series are at least as interested in the personal stories of Ruth, Harry and friends as they are in the whodunnit aspects of the books and those fans will not be disappointed with this instalment. Ruth’s daughter has her first birthday in this book but Ruth still frets about her mothering skills and seems a little preoccupied at times so she is not quite the dominant character in this book as she has been in the past and Harry’s dry humour is also quiet for a while when he undergoes a particularly nasty trauma. While I did miss the presence of my favourite two people a little, there were many developments in the lives of the lesser characters to keep me interested. I have quite a soft spot for Cathbad who is a lab technician at Ruth’s university but is also a Druid and seems willing to participate in any vaguely spiritual ritual he thinks suitable for a given situation which often has unforseen circumstances.

I look forward with much anticipation to the arrival on my doorstep of the annual instalment of this series and, once again, the reading experience lived up to my expectations, providing a very enjoyable and satisfying read with just a hint of what might happen in the next book.. I read A ROOM FULL OF BONES in a single day (again the housework was neglected) and had a very contented smile on my face upon completion, you can’t ask for better than that.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

A Room Full of Bones has been reviewed at Euro Crime

I have reviewed the first three books in the series: The Crossing Places, The Janus Stone and The House at Sea’s End

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 3.5/5
Publisher Quercus [2012]
ISBN 9781849163699
Length 344 pages
Format trade paperback
Book Series #4 in the Ruth Galloway series
Source I bought it
Creative Commons Licence
This work by http://reactionstoreading.com is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

Review: The Burning by Jane Casey

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If I had a dollar for every time someone has made some variation on the “you must be twisted to read all those books about serial killers” remark I’d be a rich woman. Well, moderately wealthy anyway. The comment always makes me grind my teeth as I try to respond politely when what I really want to say is “you are a moron if you think that’s all crime fiction is about”. I avoid serial killer books with the same dedication as I avoid religious proselytisers and green peas and would not, therefore, have picked up this book (with its blurb and cover that all scream serial killer) if I didn’t implicitly trust Maxine who reviewed the book at Petrona.

As the book opens we are indeed introduced to the presence of a serial killer in London. A drunk girl gets into a taxi but soon starts to feel something is wrong. The car isn’t going in the right direction and there are other hints something is amiss…she has heard about the killer named by the media as The Burning Man who has killed four women and she worries that she is in the car with him. When DC Maeve Kerrigan is called out in the early hours of the morning to the resultant crime scene it appears the killer she and the large investigative team assigned to the case have been looking for has finally been caught red-handed. But then another body is found and it too appears to be a victim of the same killer. The DI in charge of the case is unsure enough about this victim’s connection to the other cases to make sure that Maeve investigates the new case as independently as possible, though he doesn’t reassign the case because if it should turn out to be another victim of ‘their’ killer he doesn’t want there to be any legal problems with having had doubts about the case at all. This was one of the aspects of the story that made me feel quite sorry for the police and all the second guessing they must have to do and it made me wonder how often issues like this have a detrimental impact on real investigations.

All of that setup doesn’t take very long at all and so readers soon leave behind the hunt for the serial killer and follow instead Maeve’s investigation into the death of Rebecca Haworth who was an Oxford graduate and a successful PR woman. At this point we also meet Rebecca’s best friend, Louise, and from this point onwards some chapters are told from her perspective which provides a nice contrast to the scenes which unfold from Maeve’s point of view. Between the two we are slowly shown a picture of Rebecca that was a little different from first appearances and there does not seem to be a shortage of people who might have wanted her dead if she does indeed turn out not to be the Burning Man’s latest victim. The depiction of all three woman – Maeve, Louise and Rebecca – is skilfully done and their interlocking stories made the book fly by for me.

Although the book is more of a psychological suspense than anything else there are also elements of the police procedural too, especially the office politics of the work. Maeve is subject to relatively mild sexism and racism from her colleagues but she also has an intelligent and fair boss which provides a nice balance. Her personal life is not the picture of health unfortunately, as her wealthy boyfriend can’t quite understand the demands of her job, and this thread also plays out credibly across the novel.

I did find the resolution to this novel fairly easy to spot but I did enjoy watching how Casey would get us to the end I expected. The plotting is certainly logical and did have some nicely unpredictable twists along the way and the way that readers are drawn into the lives of the characters makes this well worth reading. If you’re looking for a book about the hunt for a serial killer you’ll need to go elsewhere but if you’re after a thoughtfully layered novel of suspense then you could do a lot worse than read The Burning.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

The Burning has been reviewed at Euro Crime, Petrona and The Book Whsiperer

I’m counting this towards my Irish Reading challenge as the author is Irish and one of the two main protagonists is of Irish heritage and this issue is addressed as one of the minor plot threads of the novel. Having read two books by male authors for this challenge I was looking for female Irish crime writers who set their books in Ireland and so far have come up blank so this will have to count.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦
My rating 3.5/5
Publisher Ebury Digital [2010]
ISBN 9781409005018
Length 327 pages
Format eBook (ePub)
Book Series standalone (?).
Source I bought it

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